South Africa – Hot Heels 2012

Novermber in Zurich was as grey as usual. Makes me work more & live less… which technically isn’t a disaster… but when December comes and South Africa is on the travel list: Life tends to be that tiny bit better.

We had everything this year.
To start with the good part… I got two podiums! A second at Hot Heels Africa, last IGSA World Cup race of the season, and I got second as well at High Rising.
We saw spiders, snakes, baboons, chameleons, penguins, camels…
We ate big animals, and generally ate well and a lot, we went geo caching and go carting, hiking and swimming, we drove on the left side of the road and we had the best host we could wish for!

Have a look at the rest of the pictures on my flickr!

In the semi finals of Hot Heels, Felipe Malaga, our friend from Peru had a horrifying crash resulting severe head injury. He is today, 28th of December, still in the hospital in South Africa where he recovers slowly.

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Photo by Brittany Fine

Camouflageing Kopie

baboons Kopie

go get it Kopie

Highrising Podium Women Kopie

Pat and I at Highrising Kopie

Bakoven Kopie

concies 2012 Kopie

gate to the sea Kopie

Hot Heels 2012

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Lion's Head Kopie

O tang Kopie

sunset at HH Kopie

the van den bergs Kopie

those two Kopie

Photos by Tamara Prader

secret smile on slanted.de

Finding relics of my summer activities. As earlier mentioned, the smile at your sister ladies invited me to be part of the second edition of secret smile, a nicely mixed goodie bag full of surprises. Contributions of artists, graphic designers, singer/ songwriters and authors arranged by Daniela Bily und Kathrin Knapp. My special surprise was the little, colorful a stick on monster tattoo!
Happy, I could contribute a few lines and hope to be part of the next edition od secret smile.

Secret Smile

beauty of the moment. about solo sessions

Skating is good for the soul.
A lack of motivation to look for company made me go to Dolder and Rigiblick alone. I haven’t skated on my own in a very, very long time. It felt great!
The things I was working on didn’t work any better only because I was skating by myself but stubbornness made me skate three hours, run to the gondola to catch it again and push harder. It made me swear silently when things didn’t work out and it made my soul happy.

tamara ovronnaz@olivier séguin leduc
Photo by Olivier Séguin- Leduc

Before I went on my solo mission, I visited the Museum Rietberg with my mom. It has an incredibly beautiful garden and very nice buildings.
The exhibition was called „The beauty of the moment“ and showed Japanese, hand coloured Photos from the 19th century and woodblock prints from the 18th and 19th century. The Japanese culture has such an entirely different understanding of room and proportion and I am fascinated by the reserved and powerful beauty that comes out of it. The high diligence in the details makes me feel humble.

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Japanese Photo 1890 ©2012 Museo delle Culture, Lugano

 

no place like home

After a very nice afternoon skate with my friend at our local spot, I just found this incredible invention.
A GPS shoe by Dominic Wilcox. Not just functional… really nice too! Have a look at the project he called No place like home …which makes it that little extra bit better.

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creatures

Quite pointless to post things like these, I admit. There is more important stuff I could write and think about. But in a moment of creative excitement… I was brainstorming a while and then lost track and strarted to clean up my computer. Before we can produce new things it helps sometimes to look at what we already made… in order to know better now.

funny creatures

czech formalism

Triangle

When you travel, you often feel like you see the most beautiful things but your heart isn’t big enough to capture it all!
… That’s when you can take out your camera, if you’re lucky, and take a picture. Calvin Russell sings the following lines in „Crossroads“:

I’ve travelled many roads
And not all of them where good
The foolish ones taught more to me
Than the wise ones ever could

It is good to leave the highway every now and then!

Bubble

Dam

Power

Tower